


Little Cat Feet

by motherbearof3



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Barson never existed in this universe, Developing Relationship, F/M, Post-Episode: s19e13 The Undiscovered Country, actually it was challenging to write a new character, crack ship?, mostly - Freeform, what am I thinking?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 12:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21099398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/motherbearof3/pseuds/motherbearof3
Summary: Rafael Barba is gone and Olivia finds herself becoming more than friends with her deputy chief.





	Little Cat Feet

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up thinking about pairing Olivia with Dodds Sr. last week and the more I thought about it and then started writing it, the more it evolved and seemed plausible. Especially with Barba out of the picture.
> 
> Thanks as always need to go to Dick Wolf, Warren Leight (because we have him back!) and NBC for giving us these characters to play with. Because none of them are mine.

There was a poem Olivia Benson remembered from high school. Or college; she wasn’t sure at this point. But it started ‘the fog came in on little cat feet’ and every time she saw fog, she thought of that poem. This time, however, when she saw the clouds outside the window, it reminded her of something else. The man in the bed beside her. This love had come in on little cat feet. It had crept quietly into her life and she wasn’t exactly sure when it had changed from colleagues to friends, and then one day she found herself looking forward to his visits to her office and the casual touches. Sure they had butted heads, but they were both professional enough to know it wasn’t personal. He had a job to do and so did she, and sometimes that meant they had a differing of opinion. He was frequently more concerned about the politics and the optics than she and Olivia was more than willing to let him be. But at the end of the day, they were both on the same side. 

Looking back it might have started when he stopped by her apartment after the Sheila Porter fiasco. He’d asked how she was, and his tone conveyed more than just the I’m-asking-because-we-work-together-and-it’s-the-polite-thing-to-do one she’d gotten from other people outside of her squad. There was real concern in his voice and on his face. Later that day, when she’d stayed long past quitting time, he appeared in her doorway.

“Lieutenant, you don’t have to make up for three weeks of time off in one day.”

Olivia pushed her glasses up on her head.

“You know how it is. Crime never sleeps.”

“Yes, but you’re allowed to. Have you eaten?”

She shook her head and he crossed the space to her desk and gently closed her laptop.

“Come on, I’ve got a car downstairs. I’ll take you home and we’ll stop and get something on the way.”

Olivia pushed her chair back and stood up.

“Thanks, I’ll accept the ride, but I need to get home to Noah.”

“I know, that’s why we’re taking the food back to your place. I wasn’t asking you out, Olivia. What is his favorite these days? Chicken nuggets? Macaroni and cheese? Or is he a plain noodles kind of guy? I assume at his age, green vegetables are out of the question.”

After he helped her on with her coat she cocked her head and looked at him curiously.

“What?” He chuckled. “I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to parent a six year old boy.”

His appearance in her doorway when the clock ticked past six became a regular thing; happening another time that first week, twice the next, and three the week after. They didn’t always stop for food, but he always saw her home. He never stayed, even though she invited him in each time. Finally, on the third night in the third week, when they were waiting to order from a Thai place that he recommended, telling her he was sure Noah would like the seasoned noodles and chicken on the kids’ menu that she extended the invitation again.

“Chief, you’ve been getting me home at reasonable hours for three weeks. Why don’t you join us for dinner tonight? My treat. As a way of saying thank you. Unless you have plans. It is Friday night.”

William Dodds smiled at the woman beside him and shook his head. 

“No plans. And I will, on one condition.”

“What would that be?”

“Outside of work you call me Bill.”

“Okay.” She smiled back. “Bill.”

Dodds was right. Noah loved his meal, and even let the man instruct him on how to use chopsticks. So his mother wasn’t completely surprised when he asked the man if he wanted to go ice skating with them the next day.

“Honey, I’m sure Chief Dodds — Bill — has better things to do on his Saturday than go ice skating,” she said, wondering when the last time the man had been on skates. Her skills had improved only since Noah decided he had a passion for skating that winter after attending a classmates’ birthday party, but the first few times she fell more than he did.

“Actually, I love to skate. I play on a recreational hockey team two nights a week,” Dodds said, much to Olivia’s surprise. “Mike got me into it.” He added, seeing the look on her face. “We used to play together and I — I just kept playing…..after.”

She nodded, understanding what he meant. He hadn’t been able to give up something that gave him a connection to his dead son.

“So you’ll come?” Noah asked eagerly, ending the somber moment.

“Sure. But that means you need to get to bed so you can try and beat me in a race around the rink.”

Dodds ruffled the boy’s curls and stood up from the table.

“I’ll meet you there, tomorrow. What time?”

Olivia sent Noah to brush his teeth and get ready for bed and walked the man to the door, handing him his overcoat from the rack.

“I told him we’d go around ten. You don’t have to come, you know, just because he asked.”

“I know, Olivia. But I’d like to. Unless you’d rather I didn’t?”

“No, not at all,” she smiled at him. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Dodds was waiting for them when mother and son arrived at the ice rink the following morning and Olivia realized she had never seen the deputy chief in anything other than a suit or his police uniform. He was dressed in jeans and a blue turtleneck sweater under a casual winter jacket. The color of the shirt made his eyes seem even bluer, she thought. He had his own hockey skates held in gloved hands and greeted them both with a smile that warmed her, even though the early February day was blustery and cold. He donned his skates while she rented hers and Noah’s and then helped the boy with his while she put on her own. Noah listened attentively while the man explained the importance of tying the laces properly and Olivia knew she’d be hearing about it the next time they went skating.

After a half dozen laps around the rink, Olivia begged off to warm up and left them to skate a bit more. She watched from a heated bench, happy to see the look on her son’s face as the two talked and skated and the man gave him tips on skating backwards. While she knew Noah didn’t need a father or even a father figure to grow up a well-rounded child, her male detectives and even ADA Rafael Barba always made time to interact with him when they could, sharing some of their own individual talents and interests. It looked like the deputy chief had been added to the list as well. When the cold finally drove man and boy off the ice, Noah asked if Dodds would join them for lunch. He declined, citing another commitment, but seeing the boy’s pout, offered a hockey lesson the following weekend.

“You don’t have to,” Olivia began to protest, but he waved her off.

“I’d love to,” Dodds assured her. Then he looked at his watch. “I’ve got to go. This was a lot of fun. Thanks for inviting me, Noah. I’ll see you next weekend.”

“Olivia, I’ll see you at work on Monday.”

She reached out and put a hand on his arm.

“Thanks for coming, Bill. It was fun.”

It _ was _fun, she thought as the weekend wore on, and was looking forward to seeing him on Monday. But the Householder case and Jack McCoy’s rush to get judgement against Barba took her entire week. A week that ended with a man she considered her best friend leaving her standing outside the courthouse after quitting his job as ADA. So when Saturday came around, Olivia was less than enthusiastic about a hockey outing. Dodds knew about everything that had happened, but didn’t realize the extent it had affected the SVU leader. He’d texted her the night before telling her he would pick them up around the same time they’d met the week before and was outside her apartment door promptly at 10 a.m. One look at her face told him she wasn’t herself. Her eyes were red and the skin around them puffy, as if she’d been crying. Over her shoulder, he could see Noah on the couch, watching television.

“Olivia, what’s wrong?”

He spoke quietly to not be overheard by the boy. She shook her head.

“Nothing. It was just a bad week. The Householder case. Barba’s trial.” She bit her lip to keep it from trembling. “He quit, you know.”

“I heard,” Dodds said.

Then the pieces fell into place.

“Were you and Barba?”

“No!” Olivia spoke louder than she wanted and cast a look over her shoulder, but Noah was still engrossed in animated Lego figures. She lowered her voice. 

“No. Although I thought….” her voice drifted off and she cleared her throat but couldn’t hide the huskiness in it when she said, “But he’s leaving.”

“Then, to quote Robert Loggia’s character in “Jagged Edge”, ‘Fuck him. He was trash.’”

Hearing the profanity from the deputy chief’s mouth caused a shocked giggle to bubble up in her throat and she covered her mouth to keep it in, but couldn’t prevent the tears from pooling in her eyes nonetheless at the slam toward Barba.

“Olivia.”

Dodds reached out and pulled her into his arms. She moved instinctively and put her own around his waist and buried her face in his shoulder. This was the embrace she’d longed for from Barba the other day. His arms were strong and felt comforting and she started to relax. She hadn’t slept much the night before, nor the night before that. Olivia suddenly felt like she could stay in Bill Dodds’ arms.

“Mom?” came Noah’s voice from the other room suddenly. “Is Chief Dodds here? I heard the door. Are you guys talking work stuff?”

She stiffened in his arms and went to move from them. He pressed his lips to her temple before letting her go and walking past her into the living room.

“Hey, Noah. Yeah, sorry. Your mom and I were talking work. But no more. Are you ready to learn some hockey moves?”

Dodds spoke to Noah and watched out of the corner of his eye as Olivia walked down the hall toward her bedroom. When she returned a few minutes later, she looked more composed.

“All right, Noah, tv off and go put your shoes on.”

The boy had been explaining to Dodds who all the characters were, but he obediently turned the program off and dashed to his bedroom. Olivia turned to the deputy chief.

“Thank you,” she said.

“No thanks are necessary, Olivia.”

He reached out and took her hand, gave it a squeeze, holding it briefly and then let it go, leaving her feeling a little bereft. She’d have liked to kept holding his hand, taking comfort from its warmth.

Dodds had been able to reserve part of the indoor rink where his team played and set up a youth sized net. For more than an hour, he instructed Noah on the proper handling of a hockey stick and how to hit a puck, while Olivia watched from the other side of the boards. Finally, the man left the boy practicing and joined her.

“He has some natural athletic talent,” he said. “But he’s very graceful on the skates. I’ll bet he’d be a good dancer. I could show him some moves.”

“I didn’t know you dance, chief?”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, lieutenant,” he countered. His blue eyes held her brown until she looked away. 

They sat there in silence, watching Noah for a few minutes, both thinking about their embrace in her apartment. He’d meant to make her laugh with his comment, but the partly serious insult aimed at the recently departed ADA had backfired and he hadn’t been able to resist taking the woman into his arms. But once she was there, it felt…...good. No man should make a woman cry. Of all the things Bill Dodds regretted about his marriage, the times he’d made his ex wife cry was near the top. Plus he was surprised to see Olivia in tears. She hadn’t fought or rejected him; instead, relaxed into him, taking strength and comfort from him. He liked that. Now he was wondering when his feelings for the SVU lieutenant had shifted from collegial to something else. A glance in her direction and he took in her wavy brown hair that had been soft against his cheek and the green sweater that complimented her complexion. She shivered. While it wasn’t as cold in the rink as outdoors, it was chilly and she had shed her coat.

“Cold?”

“A little,” Olivia replied. 

But instead of reaching for her jacket, she slid closer to him on the bench so their thighs were touching and she could feel the warmth from his body. As she’d watched him on the ice with Noah, Olivia reflected on their earlier interaction. She hated herself for feeling like she did about Barba’s bizarre departure. When she met him outside the courthouse and he told her how much she had changed him, she thought he was building up to confess feelings for her. They’d played a flirtatious game for the last few years, and she’d often wondered what he’d do if she grabbed him by his suspenders and kissed him. But she never had and now would never get the chance. The deputy chief’s actions had come as a surprise but if she was honest, weren’t unwelcome. In the weeks since she returned to work and he’d been making sure she got home at a reasonable hour and the couple occasions he’d spent time with her and Noah, she’d enjoyed his presence. He was good with her son, which came as no surprise, given he’d raised two boys of his own. She wasn’t planning on rushing into anything, but wasn’t opposed to seeing where things went.

Movement at her side pulled Olivia’s attention from her thoughts. She turned to Dodds.

“I’m sorry. Daydreaming I guess,” she admitted, feeling a slight blush color her cheeks. “What did you say?”

“I said I may have told Noah we could get pizza after this. Is that okay?”

“As long as you’re buying. Do you know how much pizza he eats?”

“Olivia.” Dodds smiled at her. “Have you forgotten? I fed two boys to adulthood. Wait until he’s a teenager.”

She groaned and leaned her shoulder into his as they both laughed.

Hockey lessons turned into batting practice as the weather warmed and Olivia was pleased to see Noah preferred the deputy chief to the former pro ballplayer turned ADA who had tried to bribe his way into her and Noah’s lives with offers of free tickets to ballgames. It was bad enough, she’d thought, that he didn’t even have enough modesty to finish changing his shirt before calling her into his office. At the time, she made a mental comparison of the lawyer’s abs to Brian Cassidy when he was younger, but later, as she thought about the incident again, wondered what Bill -- when had she started referring to him as Bill in her head, she thought as well -- looked like without a shirt. Thoughts such as those continued to randomly appear in Olivia’s head as she, Noah and Dodds spent more time together and she saw him in more casual clothes. When he appeared at one of Noah’s ball games in shorts, she found herself glancing appreciatively at his toned calves and wondered if he ran or if that was just from skating. For his part, the deputy chief was noticing that the SVU lieutenant was hiding quite a shapely figure beneath her work blazers when she traded them for T-shirt’s on weekends and evenings they spent together.

In late May, Dodds had to go to California for a conference and as he sat on the plane winging west, decided when he returned he would ask Olivia out. On a real date. Without a six year old chaperone. After a second long, boring day listening to talks on how to make a police department more media friendly, improve optics and watching example press conferences, he turned on his phone to check messages from his office. One was that in the process of trying to locate a man who had been taken hostage, Lt. Benson had been taken hostage herself. Dodds heart leapt to his throat. He knew Olivia had been held hostage before and was able to take care of herself, but having gotten to know her as more than a colleague, his concern now came from a different place. Tugging his necktie loose, he listened to another that told him a drug cartel was suspected to be involved.

“Fuck,” he muttered, entering the hotel elevator and punching the number for his floor.

Another message had his breathing ease when it told him the hostage situation had been resolved without harm to anyone; civilian or law enforcement. That meant Olivia was safe. He ended the message and swiped his thumb to her contact information, dialing her number. A recorded message told him his call could not be completed as dialed and groaned in frustration as he realized he had no signal in the elevator. The doors finally opened on his floor and he strode down the hall, keying into his room quickly, dialing a second time.

Across the country, it was nearing ten o’clock and Oliva had just gotten out of a long shower. She’d triple checked the door locks before getting under the spray and letting the water pound the stress of the day out of her muscles. After dressing in her nightclothes of shorts and a tank top, she combed her hair and settled on her bed to rub lotion on her legs. As she did, she looked at the marks on her wrists from where her own handcuffs had rubbed her skin earlier that day. They brought back memories of being handcuffed by William Lewis. She tried to push them from her mind and smoothed lotion on them as well. She had just replaced the cap on the tube when her phone rang. The screen showed Bill Dodds’ name. She remembered he was at a conference on the west coast and had no knowledge of what transpired that day.

“Bill.”

“Olivia, you’re all right?”

“You heard.”

“Yes, I heard, dammit. Are you all right?”

He placed his phone on the dresser and put it on speaker so he could toe off his shoes and shrug out of his suit coat. Placing it over the back of a nearby chair, his pants followed, then tie. His shirt came off and went into a dry cleaning bag. Clad only in his undershirt, boxers and socks, he opened the minibar and surveyed his choices. Olivia had listened to the rustle of clothing and klink of his belt, and felt a little voyeuristic, wondering how much he was still wearing and what he looked like.

“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

He chose the small bottle of bourbon and cracked the seal, wincing as he thought about how much it was going to cost him and wasn’t even the really good stuff. Then he poured it into tumbler and took a sip.

“Don’t be coy, Lieutenant. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Other than some chafing from the handcuffs, I’m fine.”

“Handcuffs?”

“Yes, she put my own handcuffs on me.” Olivia rubbed her wrists again absently. “It would have made it hard to get the gun from her if I’d had to, but fortunately that wasn’t necessary.”

“Shit, Olivia.”

This time she heard more concern come through in his voice and felt bad for being sarcastic before.

“I’m fine, Bill,” she repeated more softly. “Really.”

He heard the rustle of sheets and remembered he was three hours behind New York.

“Did I disturb you? Were you in bed?”

Olivia smiled and slid beneath the covers and clicked off the lamp beside her.

“Just getting ready. But I’d have answered even if you woke me up. I’ve missed seeing you,” she admitted. Work had kept both of them in their respective offices for more than a week before he left for the conference.

“Me too.” 

He took the phone off of speaker and lifted it to his ear, making the conversation more intimate and took another sip of his drink before speaking again.

“How about we do something this weekend?”

“Okay.”

“Just you and I. Can you get a sitter for Noah?”

“So like a date?” Olivia smiled in the darkness.

“Like a date. Is that something you’d like to do, Olivia?”

Bill’s voice was deep and soft in her ear and she felt it like a caress on her bare skin, making her shiver.

“I would.”

“Good. Now get some sleep. You had a rough day and I have some emails to answer. I’ll call you once I’m home tomorrow.”

She was a little disappointed that he didn’t want to talk longer, but knew he was away for business not pleasure and still had responsibilities that needed to be handled.

“Okay. Good night, Bill.”

“Good night, Olivia.”

After they ended the call, Olivia lay there in bed unable to relax and fall asleep. Every time she closed her eyes, her mind was flooded with images. From earlier that day and other times she had been held hostage. In the townhouse by Joe Utley and twice by William Lewis. In comparison, today was nothing. She never feared that Lourdes Vega would actually shoot her. But if she had tried to shoot Miguel Lopez, Olivia would have had to try and stop her. With her hands cuffed together, the odds of one of them getting shot accidentally or going over the side of the balcony had been high. Finally she reached for her phone. In his hotel room, Dodds saw her name appear on the screen as he sent his last reply. He answered the call with a tease in his voice.

“Can’t sleep?”

“Actually no.”

Olivia’s came back across the line more serious and he immediately knew why.

“Do you want to talk about today?”

He heard her conceal a sigh.

“If you don’t mind listening.”

“Of course not.”

Olivia woke several hours later to her phone vibrating in her hand with an incoming text. 

** _You fell asleep talking to me. _ **

** _I hope it helped._ **

** _I’ll see you when I get back._ **

** _Bill_ **

She smiled sleepily and rolled over, still holding the phone and drifted back to sleep, not waking again until her alarm went off.

Olivia was at her desk mid morning when a shadow darkened her desk. She looked up, expecting to see one of her detectives with an update on Miguel Lopez and a smile creased her face when she saw it was the deputy chief.

“I thought your flight didn’t get in until this afternoon?”

He shrugged. “I changed it and took the redeye.”

Dodds crossed to stand beside her, his back to the door and the bullpen beyond. Then he reached out and covered her hand where it lay on the desktop. 

“I wanted to see for myself you were all right.”

She wanted to stand and kiss him on the cheek for his caring but settled for another smile and reversing their hands so hers was on top and giving his a squeeze.

“You couldn’t have gotten much sleep,” Olivia said, remembering the text he’d sent her.

“I don’t sleep much.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the detectives bringing their lieutenant an update and both shifted into their work roles. It was work that got their date postponed as new ADA Stone’s sister Pam, was kidnapped from her psychiatric facility by the cartel and ended up being shot to death but when Bill finally showed up at Olivia’s door she was more than ready for some non-work conversation.

“So what are we doing?” she asked, slipping her hand through his arm as they exited her building.

“How does dinner and a movie sound?”

“As long as it’s not an action movie. I’ve had enough of that in real life for a while.”

Dodds nodded in agreement.

“It’s not. How’s Stone?”

“Not good,” Olivia told him as they walked. “I don’t know if he’s cut out for this job, Bill.”

“You can tell me your thoughts on that another time. Tonight, we’re just two people on a date.”

She squeezed his arm and tipped her head to rest on his shoulder for a moment.

“That sounds like a wonderful idea.”

After dinner, Dodds got them a cab. 

“This isn’t your usual movie theatre,” he said. “They only show classic movies.”

The two movies currently being shown were _ Casablanca _ and _ Gone With the Wind _.

“Your choice, Olivia.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen _ Gone With the Wind _ but I think that’s too long for tonight. We might have to come back some afternoon for that one,” she told him.

“Bogie it is then,” Bill said and went to purchase tickets while Olivia got them a container of popcorn.

The theatre had only two screening rooms and the one they were directed to looked more like someone’s living room than a theatre, Olivia thought. There were a couple rows of luxurious single seats, but also several risers that held comfortable sofas just large enough for two people. Since there were no single seats together, Dodds led the way to one of the sofas on the top riser.

“Is this okay?”

“Perfect.”

While there was enough room for them to sit without touching, Olivia found herself settling close enough to her date that their legs and arms were pressed against each other. The lights dimmed and previews began; one of which was for _ The Wizard of Oz _. She leaned closer to whisper, 

“We should bring Noah to that. He’d love it.”

“Absolutely,” Dodds agreed. “That was one of my boys’ favorites at his age.”

Feeling like a nervous teenager, he lifted his arm and put it along the back of the sofa, around her with his hand on her shoulder as the feature film began. Olivia snuggled against his side and rested her hand comfortably on his thigh, holding the popcorn with her other. By the time the movie ended and the lights went up, she had turned so her head was on his shoulder and his arm encircled her with his hand at her waist. Tipping her head to look at him Olivia said,

“I can’t believe she left him. Or that he let her.”

“He let her go because he loved her.”

As he said the words, he thought back to the day in February when she told him Barba was leaving and he’d asked if there was something between them. She’d denied it but hinted she had feelings for him. Had she let the lawyer leave because she loved him?

“I guess so. I guess we do things for the people we love that don’t always make us happy.” Oliva shifted away from him and stood up from the couch. “But it’s just a movie right?”

Outside the theatre the evening was still warm.

“Can we walk?” she asked, curling her hand around his arm like she had at the start of their evening.

“Sure.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes before Dodds spoke again.

“Olivia, I’m going to speak plainly. I’ve enjoyed spending time with you and Noah. I’m attracted to you. But I’ve also been around the block. Married, divorced, grown kids.” He paused and amended himself. “Kid. And I’m not going to pursue a relationship with someone who's holding a torch for someone else.”

She stopped in her tracks, halting him as well, her face reflecting the confusion in her head.

“Bill, where is this coming from?”

He reversed their hand positions and guided her across the street to a small park and a nearby bench, drawing her down to sit beside him.

“In the theatre. You said sometimes we do things for people we love that don’t always make us happy after you questioned why Ilsa left and why Rick let her go. Did you let Barba leave because you have feelings for him? Do you regret not asking him to stay?”

“No! I -- “ 

She considered his question for a moment. Three months before she might have had a different answer but not now. 

“No. I told you I thought maybe he had feelings for me and I thought at one time there could have been something between us, but Barba is gone, Bill.”

Olivia met his gaze unwaveringly and put a hand on his arm.

“I haven’t heard from him since he left. And if we’re going to speak plainly, I’m attracted to you too.”

“I hear a but coming.”

He offered her a gentle smile.

“But surely you know my track record for relationships with coworkers?”

“Olivia, if I might be so bold as to paraphrase the great Rhett Butler, you’ve been with a boy and an old man. You deserve a man who knows how to treat a lady.”

She raised an eyebrow at his choice of words to describe Ed Tucker. 

“I know that Ed is a little younger than me, but if you can’t tell me he doesn’t have the attitude of an old man when it comes to women I’ll take Noah to The Sugar Factory, which I hear is worse than Chuck E. Cheese used to be. By myself.” 

Olivia burst out laughing as the mood lightened and Bill had an urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her. When her laughter subsided, she said,

“I never kiss and tell, but I think you’re safe from a solo trip to The Sugar Factory any time soon.”

She caught a look in his eye.

“What?”

“I have an overwhelming desire to kiss you right now, Olivia, but I don’t think it would be fitting for a sex crimes lieutenant and her deputy chief to be caught making out in a park.”

A flush of desire and shiver of excitement swept through her at his words.

“Then why don’t we go somewhere out of the public eye?” Olivia said, running her fingertips down his arm to the top of his hand and lacing their fingers together. “Noah should be in bed by now.”

They rose and he led the way out of the park.

“Mine’s closer.”

Olivia didn’t know what to expect when he stopped at a building. She’d never thought about where he would live, but it turned out to be a simple loft with modest furnishings. One standard door led to the bathroom she presumed, and a sliding barn door the bedroom. The rest was one large main room with living area, galley kitchen and a small dining table. Floor to ceiling windows on one wall looked out over the park they were just in and a large brick fireplace dominated another. Dodds closed and locked the door behind them, then turned back to the woman who was taking in his living space. He moved closer until they were almost touching and reached out to brush hair away from her face and tuck it behind her ear. Then, cupping her cheek with his palm kissed her. His lips were gentle against hers and she leaned into him putting a hand against his chest, inhaling his scent as she returned the kiss. His other hand curled around her waist and pulled her closer, tilting his head so he could slant his lips over hers. A small moan rose in her throat when his tongue skillfully requested and was granted access to her mouth. He was right, Cassidy had been a boy and Tucker an old man; at least when it came to kissing. She clung to his shoulders, returning his lips’ caresses with her own until at last he pulled away and they both took deep breaths, filling their lungs with oxygen.

“Definitely a good thing we left the park,” she whispered, pressing one last kiss to his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading about a pairing I never ever though I would write about. Not sure if this will be/should be more than this single chapter but I have all kinds of head canon going on about Dodds Sr, like he only calls her by her full name, he's a movie buff and he doesn't sleep much. And so much more. I took a little liberty with when "Remember Me" and "Remember Me Too" took place just to make things fit better.
> 
> Please let me know what you think!
> 
> PS: Don't worry, I'm never giving up on Barson. They are my OTP, but this is fun.


End file.
